NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM Protocols for Buen Vivir
COGNITIVE EXTRACTIVISM. Performative intervention in La Brea, Los Angeles, commissioned by "Talking to Action," 2017. Photo by Jeanette Degollado, courtesy of Archivo Etcétera.
NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM- Protocols for Buen Vivir
Curator: Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira with curatorial assistance by Camila Palomino
Artists: Etcétera
Gallery: Abrazo Interno Gallery
Dates: May 20th - June 160th 2022
Opening Reception: May 21st, 5-9pm
The Vera List Center and The Clemente present NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM–Protocols for Buen Vivir, an exhibition and public performance of multidisciplinary Argentinian collective Etcétera. This exhibition is the last chapter in Etcétera’s two-year 2020–2022 Boris Lurie Fellowship, and the first presentation of the collective in New York City.
As an extension of their long-term project Museum of Neoextractivism, the exhibition NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM: Protocols for Buen Vivir presents artistic research that analyzes post-colonial and post-neoliberal models of natural resource extraction. Etcétera focuses on the connections between art, socio-environmental imagination, and resistance movements by environmental activists and artists from the Americas. Etcétera’s current research launches inquiry into how nation states and corporations hold responsibility in socio-environmental crimes and violations of human rights and those of other species, and connects international artists, environmental activists, and local communities across Latin America and New York.
The exhibition brings together materials collected through Buen Vivir and Ecocide, the first two chapters of Etcétera’s fellowship project, alongside posters, installations, videos, and performances from the collective’s 25-year archive. Centering the Indigenous notion of “Buen Vivir,” the exhibition is a proposition for creating art, culture, and knowledge through non-extractivist approaches.
Formed in 1997 in Buenos Aires, Etcétera is a multidisciplinary collective composed of visual artists, poets, and performers. Since 2007 co-founders Loreto Garín Guzmán (Chile) and Federico Zukerfeld (Argentina) have led it. In 2005, they were part of the founding of the International Errorist movement, an international organization that proclaims error as a philosophy of life. In addition to participating in exhibitions in museums and biennials such as the biennials of Jakarta (2015), São Paulo (2014), Athens (2013), Istanbul (2009), and Taipei (2008), they often work with street-art, public interventions, actions, and performances that are necessarily contextual, ephemeral, and circumstantial. In 2015, they received the Prince Claus Award in the Netherlands. Their work has been recognized for its denouncement of human rights and environmental abuses through theatrical and poetic actions and statements often exercised at personal risk.
Etcétera’s NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM–Protocols for Buen Vivir is a 2020-2022 Vera List Center Fellowship commissioned project and has been supported by research assistance, production grants, and curatorial support by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and the Boris Lurie Foundation. It is curated by Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira with curatorial assistance by Camila Palomino. Additional support has been provided by The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center.
This project and the Spring 2022 programs of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School are generously supported by members of the Vera List Center Board, individual donors as well as the following institutional funders:
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Boris Lurie Art Foundation
Dayton Foundation
Ford Foundation
Italian Council
Kettering Fund
Native Arts and Cultures Foundation
Pryor Cashman LLP
The New School
Online Catalog:
